The Structural Geology of the Cerrillos Hills Area, New Mexico

The earliest major structural deformation recorded in rocks exposed in the Cerrillos area occurred during the Laramie uplift of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This resulted in an erosional wedging of Upper Cretaceous strata at a rate of 130 feet per mile. Subsequent deposition of the Eocene Galisteo sand, clay, and gravel overstepped this surface in a sourceward direction. At the beginning of work on this project the major problem was to determine the geological structure of the Cerrillos Hills. It was felt that a large-scale geologic map of an area extensive enough to reveal the structurally complex center of the hills was necessary for the solution of this problem and would be a contribution to the geology of the region

A knowledge-based flight status monitor for real-time application in digital avionics systems

The Dryden Flight Research Facility of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Ames Research Center (Ames-Dryden) is the principal NASA facility for the flight testing and evaluation of new and complex avionics systems. To aid in the interpretation of system health and status data, a knowledge-based flight status monitor was designed. The monitor was designed to use fault indicators from the onboard system which are telemetered to the ground and processed by a rule-based model of the aircraft failure management system to give timely advice and recommendations in the mission control room. One of the important constraints on the flight status monitor is the need to operate in real time, and to pursue this aspect, a joint research activity between NASA Ames-Dryden and the Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE) on real-time knowledge-based systems was established. Under this agreement, the original LISP knowledge base for the flight status monitor was reimplemented using the intelligent knowledge-based system toolkit, MUSE, which was developed under RAE sponsorship. Details of the flight status monitor and the MUSE implementation are presented

Development of a knowledge acquisition tool for an expert system flight status monitor

Two of the main issues in artificial intelligence today are knowledge acquisition dion and knowledge representation. The Dryden Flight Research Facility of NASA's Ames Research Center is presently involved in the design and implementation of an expert system flight status monitor that will provide expertise and knowledge to aid the flight systems engineer in monitoring today's advanced high-performance aircraft. The flight status monitor can be divided into two sections: the expert system itself and the knowledge acquisition tool. The knowledge acquisition tool, the means it uses to extract knowledge from the domain expert, and how that knowledge is represented for computer use is discussed. An actual aircraft system has been codified by this tool with great success. Future real-time use of the expert system has been facilitated by using the knowledge acquisition tool to easily generate a logically consistent and complete knowledge base

The relationship between magnetic and electrophysiological responses to complex tactile stimuli

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Magnetoencephalography (MEG) has become an increasingly popular technique for non-invasively characterizing neuromagnetic field changes in the brain at a high temporal resolution. To examine the reliability of the MEG signal, we compared magnetic and electrophysiological responses to complex natural stimuli from the same animals. We examined changes in neuromagnetic fields, local field potentials (LFP) and multi-unit activity (MUA) in macaque monkey primary somatosensory cortex that were induced by varying the rate of mechanical stimulation. Stimuli were applied to the fingertips with three inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs): 0.33s, 1s and 2s.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Signal intensity was inversely related to the rate of stimulation, but to different degrees for each measurement method. The decrease in response at higher stimulation rates was significantly greater for MUA than LFP and MEG data, while no significant difference was observed between LFP and MEG recordings. Furthermore, response latency was the shortest for MUA and the longest for MEG data.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The MEG signal is an accurate representation of electrophysiological responses to complex natural stimuli. Further, the intensity and latency of the MEG signal were better correlated with the LFP than MUA data suggesting that the MEG signal reflects primarily synaptic currents rather than spiking activity. These differences in latency could be attributed to differences in the extent of spatial summation and/or differential laminar sensitivity.</p

Structure and dynamics of the nightside poleward boundary: Sounding rocket and ground-based observations of auroral electron precipitation in a rayed curtain

The Cascades2 auroral sounding rocket provides a case study for comparing multipoint in situ ionospheric observations of a nightside auroral poleward boundary intensification with ground-based optical observations of the same event. Cascades2 was launched northward from Poker Flat Alaska on 20 March 2009 at 11:04 UT. The 13 min flight reached an apogee of 564 km over the northern coast of Alaska. The experiment included a five-payload array of in situ instrumentation, ground cameras at three different points under the trajectory, multiple ground magnetometers, the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar (PFISR) radar, and the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft in the magnetotail. The rays of the poleward boundary intensification (PBI) curtain have along-arc motions of 8.5 km/s and along-arc spacings of 16 km. Modulated maximum energy envelopes and energy fluxes of the associated electron precipitation correspond to this spatial structure of the visible rays. The electron precipitation is additionally modulated at a higher frequency, and velocity dispersion analysis of these 8 Hz signatures implies Alfvénic wave-particle acceleration of an ambient ionospheric electron source occurring a few hundred km above the observation point. These observations parameterize the curtain of Alfvénic activity above the PBI event, both in the dispersive ionosphere and in the magnetotail reconnection region. The along-arc variations in brightness correspond to variations in precipitating electron energy flux interpreted as an along-arc modulation of the maximum energy of the Alfvénic wave-particle acceleration process; this is a new interpretation of the formation of rayed structures in auroral curtains. We consider the various possible magnetospheric and ionospheric drivers for the control of the observed along-arc structuring and motions

Auditory attention activates peripheral visual cortex

Peer reviewe

The Mating Systems and Pollination Biology of Three Species of Verbena (Verbenaceae)

Because their flowers can be cross- and/or self-pollinated Verbena stricta, V hastata and V urticifolia are facultatively xenogamous. We suggest the flowers can be cross-pollinated because I) the fruit set of caged plants was substantially lower than that of open-pollinated plants, i.e. pollinators were necessary for typical fruit set and 2) the flowers of each species attracted a diverse array of hymenopteran, dipteran and lepidopteran pollinators that were capable of moving pollen between plants. Self-pollination was low due to the spatial separation of anthers and stigmas and/or an angled corolla that decreased the likelihood of pollen dropping from the anthers onto the stigma. However, the limited ability of flowers to self-pollinate was supplemented by the intrafloral movement of pollen by thrips. In addition, both the pollen-ovule ratios and pollination efficiencies of these species were consistent with those of other facultatively xenogamous species, and the available data were consistent with each species being self-compatible. Finally, we discuss a protocol for distinguishing between self-pollination and the intrafloral movement of pollen by thrips

The Canine Papillomavirus and Gamma HPV E7 Proteins Use an Alternative Domain to Bind and Destabilize the Retinoblastoma Protein

The high-risk HPV E6 and E7 proteins cooperate to immortalize primary human cervical cells and the E7 protein can independently transform fibroblasts in vitro, primarily due to its ability to associate with and degrade the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein, pRb. The binding of E7 to pRb is mediated by a conserved Leu-X-Cys-X-Glu (LXCXE) motif in the conserved region 2 (CR2) of E7 and this domain is both necessary and sufficient for E7/pRb association. In the current study, we report that the E7 protein of the malignancy-associated canine papillomavirus type 2 encodes an E7 protein that has serine substituted for cysteine in the LXCXE motif. In HPV, this substitution in E7 abrogates pRb binding and degradation. However, despite variation at this critical site, the canine papillomavirus E7 protein still bound and degraded pRb. Even complete deletion of the LXSXE domain of canine E7 failed to interfere with binding to pRb in vitro and in vivo. Rather, the dominant binding site for pRb mapped to the C-terminal domain of canine E7. Finally, while the CR1 and CR2 domains of HPV E7 are sufficient for degradation of pRb, the C-terminal region of canine E7 was also required for pRb degradation. Screening of HPV genome sequences revealed that the LXSXE motif of the canine E7 protein was also present in the gamma HPVs and we demonstrate that the gamma HPV-4 E7 protein also binds pRb in a similar way. It appears, therefore, that the type 2 canine PV and gamma-type HPVs not only share similar properties with respect to tissue specificity and association with immunosuppression, but also the mechanism by which their E7 proteins interact with pRb